One For The Archives…

August 25, 2012

I’m posting this thread from May 2011 because I think it would be useful for us all to reflect on where we have been, and where we are going. I’d like to express my gratitude and appreciation for all the women who have worked so hard and accomplished so much over the past year. All comments are closed to this post. But do stay tuned for an important post and announcement in the coming days. -GM

REDACTEDMay 3 at 9:38am Reply • Report

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Ursula PunkMay 3 at 10:38am Reply • Report

Hi REDACTED,

I’m so glad you’re looking at this legislation. As a group, I think we should do more of this.

Well, it looks like some of the language has already been removed. YAY!

“GENDER IDENTITY” MEANS A GENDER–RELATED IDENTITY OR APPEARANCE OF AN INDIVIDUAL REGARDLESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL’S ASSIGNED SEX AT BIRTH.

Ok, I think that VISIBILIZING the masc/fem constructs that are being “protected” here is VERY important. You can’t say

a “goob identity” means a goob RELATED identity or appearance.

WHAT IS A GOOB?? Duh. And that’s what I mean by referencing masc/fem. THAT’S what this is about– disembodying masc/fem expression from sexual organs, then codifying it as SACRED.

At this point, any person can appropriate any aspect of masculinity or femininity and demand legal PROTECTION.

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Bev JoMay 3 at 3:55pm Reply • Report

I don’t know about the legal aspects, but think it sounds like re-defining females and Lesbians out of existence. I don’t believe any of the stories of men claiming they always felt like transsexuals or female from birth. The ones I’ve known, decided that as adults. I know a fifty year old het man who told me how much he wishes he was a Lesbian. I would think he would be too ethical to claim to be a Lesbian later, but all the female impersonators I’ve met, read, etc. are incredibly narcissistic. When questioned, their idea of being a “woman” is completely fetishistic, sexist, and silly really.

I imagine the wording would depend on the goals of the legislation. What exactly are you trying to accomplish with this legislation? Are there any unintended consequences of achieving those goals? And can the language then be tweaked to eliminate unintended consequences? I would have to know your goals first.

Do you want to protect the rights of males to have access to all male accommodations (locker rooms, restrooms etc) regardless of what they are wearing or how they choose to inhabit social sex-based roles?

Or do you want to legislate the rights of males to have access to all female accommodations on the basis that sex-based roles (whether internally imagined or socially performed) override sex?

The lasssst thing genderists want is a legal definition of sex. If there’s a legal definition of sex then they already have protections under title VII. What they want to do is SUBSTITUTE a legal definition of “gender identity” in the place of a legal definition of sex. So that gender identity is defined and sex is not. Then they will need “identity protections” which are NOT covered under title VII and will override title VII. At least that’s how I understand it. Ammirite?

REDACTED you’ve been fighting for the past several months TO GET GENDER IDENTITY protections PASSED in Maryland, correct? What is it you are trying to do differently here? Or have you had a change of heart? Again, what are your activist goals here.

Thank you REDACTED, I have a much better understanding now of your goals and the type of support you are looking for. I agree with you that people should not be discriminated against on the basis of sex-role performance. It’s critically important that we present the concept of sex-role freedom in a way that affirms those that consider themselves “transgender” without ceding the reality of physical sex. It’s important that we frame our arguments and proposed legislation as being the most forward thinking, pro-active, bullet-proof legal tact for preserving the rights of all sex-role nonconforming people. The problem right now is the dominant transgender political stance that denies the reality of biological sex, and claims that physical sex is a matter of will, or fantasy, or identity. We really do need a legal definition of sex based on the trifecta of genitals, gonads and chromosomes (reproductive category). But how to preserve and enhance protections for those who are female when some politically dominant genderists insist that female is a matter of identification rather than scientific biologic fact?

The problem is that most transgenders are firm believers in the essential nature of sex-roles, so much so that they advocate and claim to perform magical medical transubstantiation of biological reality in order to preserve the “unchangeable reality of gender”. We could bypass the genderists and appeal to those who hold no such illusions of the malleability of biologic reality, but then we would have to not only make transgenderists our adversaries but potentially align ourselves with the right wing who might acknowledge the reality of physical sex but who also embrace the “essential nature” of sexist gender roles. This position would be socially untenable for a public LGBT rights activist like yourself as well as antithetical to our long-term gender destructionist goals. So we MUST frame our position as an indisputable matter of the greater good so that those who don’t really give a shit about the plight of females (transgenderists) MUST come along with us.

How to do it? Perhaps by 1.) Defining physical sex as a biological reproductive physical reality. 2.) Establishing the fact that females are currently members of an oppressed class due to their physical sex. 3.) Enshrining the rights of females as an oppressed class to congregate with other females based on biological sex, and the right to exclude males. 4.) Building strong alliances with the few transgenderists that agree with the above. 5.) Outlining and engaging the broad base of all who have the right to subvert traditional gender norms- a base which dwarfs transgenderism- we need to frame our agenda as MUCH LARGER than transgender issues, (but also inclusive of transgender). We must stop making transgender the center of the gender issue by framing the issue as much larger, more progressive and far-reaching. We need to make transgenderism a footnote to a much larger issue of sex-based role discrimination.

Anyway I’m kind of spewing but those are my immediate thoughts.

Totally agree w you about Title VII. Legal protections for subjective (or psychiatrically diagnosed) internal identity absent of any objective criteria is a legal miasma. And medical sterilization as a criteria for legal status is a human rights crime.

“Scientists agree that 1.73% of all babies born in the United States have some degree of intersex condition. ”

Total crap.

About one in 14,000 births are intersex. That means 99.9999% are not. Trans have an enormous investment in co-opting intersex for transgenderism. The largest “intersex” organization in the world Organization Intersex International (OII) was set up by transsexuals to promote transgenderism as an intersex condition. Not too hard to do when the group you are co-opting is so tiny. Intersex organizations now refer to their situation as “Disorders of Sexual Development” (DSD) in order to prevent transgenders from taking over. See Alice Dreger. Dreger would also be an excellent person to discuss the legal definition of sex with, btw.

We have to be so careful to not participate or support anything that will cause females to lose what little protection we have. So-called equality will not give girls or women safety, and certainly won’t give equal pay.

The tactics men claiming to be women use is so similar to how abusive men in general behave — narcissistic, selfish, not caring who they hurt, and then asking for (and too often getting) sympathy and support from their victims or at the expense of their victims.

I have yet to meet an MTF who seems remotely female. All seem to not have a clue what it means to be female. They have a pornified, fetishized idea of us, which is bizarre and oppressive. They are a slight variation on the usual het men who want access to women and Lesbians, but much more dangerous.

But too much Lesbian sympathy has gone to them, which is the typical thing that women do to protect men. The result is that they have destroyed almost all female-only space. They are writing the books that erase our Lesbian history. They speak for us and it is horrific that they get on rape crisis lines. This is an international takeover. They destroyed the last women’s center in Sweden and are now going after the battered women’s shelter there.

Any of us who have spoken against them have gotten death threats. Most het men are more “womanly” than these men who are trying to define us out of existence.

I have more sympathy for FTMs, who are clearly women, but really they have to despise us to not want to be us. And most are revealing themselves eventually to be het or sexual women.

It is so important to not be drawn into their lies and tricks. If only women and Lesbians followed their gut instinct about all this.

Bev JoMay 4 at 2:56pm Reply • Report

I did first write about the castrated men invading our communities in 1973 in Dykes and Gorgons. I talked about the chromosomal differences — soul differences — and the violence of males. I don’t know the technical info that Gallus and [redacted] say so well, but I continue the argument on the personal level to make it simple for those who are tempted to sympathize with them. Whatever women give them, is taken from girls, women, and Lesbians. It’s like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And it’s a mystery because to some of us, these are clearly the worst kind of men.

REDACTED, have you seen my article on my blog about female impersonators?

REDACTEDMay 4 at 4:05pm Reply • Report

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Bev JoMay 4 at 4:08pm Reply • Report

Yes, here it is, but it’s opened onto another article. The one I’m mentioning is part one of Defining Lesbians Out of Existence.

From Val: The erasure of Butches in the Lesbian community is a real problem. Butch oppression works in just the same way as any of the other oppressions feminists and/or Lesbians tend to discuss: the most prominent voices are the more male-identified and perpetuate patriarchal mores. In fact, it’s b

“So then the issue to direct them towards is to define transsexualism, which is what they seek to protect, and not couch it in terms of this vague concept of “gender identity.””

YES.

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Bev JoMay 4 at 4:30pm Reply • Report

Those who’ve been to Michigan say that’s what they hand out. What’s a mystery is that this isn’t common knowledge, but that their propaganda is everywhere.

I think even more important than insisting they define themselves as “transsexual” is to go further, because there is no such thing. It’s like when they were attacking an earlier version of my article and kept wanting to be called “trans-ladies.” A newly Separatist friend mistakenly believed she could reach them and agreed to call them that. I was outraged. “Ladies” is a humiliating term used against women. And, even worse, it was acquiesing to their demands. And, it’s a lie.

It’s essential to not given them an inch. They are not “women” or “ladies” of any kind. It is so important to not call them “transwomen” or even “transsexual.” One friend calls them “female impersonators.” “Castrated men” isn’t good really since most will never be castrated. They are men. That simple. And that’s the level we must fight on. Otherwise, we will lose everything. We have mostly lost everything already.

We also have to support other women and Lesbians to follow their gut feelings in knowing these are men, and to not feel sorry for them. Any support they are given is at our expense.

At a Lesbian brunch recently, I was lectured by several very “feminine” (as in male-defined feminine), het-looking Lesbians who defended trans by telling me I didn’t know what it was like to never feel like I belonged and to always feel different (like the trans do, theoretically). All they had to do was look at me to know that that is exactly how I grew up. I always knew I was a Lesbian. I didn’t feel I was male in any way because males were so obviously cruel and nasty, but I knew I didn’t belong anywhere. This group was too busy speaking for trans to notice or care about Butches or other outcast Lesbians. Yet most MTFs grew up fitting in as “normal” men. They are het men who want access to Lesbians.

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Bev JoMay 4 at 5:03pm Reply • Report

I’m glad you understand, REDACTED. I think we need to reach women and Lesbians by using their tactics against them — which is that they are victimizing us and using our politics and identity against us.

I don’t know about this group, but have to rush off soon. Will check later.

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Gallus Mag May 4 at 1:37am Reply • Report

REDACTED you’ve been fighting for the past several months TO GET GENDER IDENTITY protections PASSED in Maryland, correct? What is it you are trying to do differently here? Or have you had a change of heart? Again, what are your activist goals here.

REDACTED – we simply don’t want males to be legally defined as female.

We don’t want them in female only spaces, we don’t want male rapists sent to women’s prisons (as has happened in the UK since passage of the gender identity bill) , we don’t want them marked down statistically as female- for example in the recording of government crime statistics or statistics of “females” working in technology, those sorts of things. We don’t want funds for women’s programs going to males.

Also, [redacted]- the reason those places that have legally defined sex (like Texas) use the genitals/gonads/chromosome model is because a purely chromosomal legal definition would render anyone who has not been chromosomally tested as having no legal sex at all.

lol REDACTED- they did a whole post about me, “Alls Sans Daylight on the Exterminationist Frontier” and I did a whole response post (with the same title) in fake elizabethan english Shakespeare mockery. LMAO Good Times.

Lana Lawless, the transgender woman who sued the L.P.G.A. and the Long Drivers of America last October challenging their rule that competitors be “female at birth,” has settled her case, her lawyer said.

You said that really well, [redacted]. It’s all so annoying — so much time, energy, money, etc. wasted on a privileged group — they seem to be primarily class-privileged white men — wanting to be the center of attention and trying to take away the very little that a more oppressed group had. It’s still kind of unbelievable that these men claim our identity and are mostly succeeding in getting Lesbian support.

Great comments on PHB “REDACTED”. Highlights the need for a legal definition of sex and for sex as a protected category. Ask Autumn Sandeen what HIS definition of female is. Should be a fascinating reply! lolol

The problem with gender identity laws is that they REPLACE sex as a legal class with gender identity. And since the only sex getting any benefit from sex-based legal protections is the female sex, those protections are being eliminated.

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Bev JoMay 8 at 9:05pm Reply • Report

A sad report from the fundraiser for the Lyon-Martin Clinic last night. Named after Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, among the original Lesbian activists, the clinic is deeply in debt. Of course it was almost all old Lesbians who showed up to pay way too much and then pressured — by Kate Kendall of NCLR! — to give hundreds and thousands of dollars more. Guess who’s director? A gay man. Guess who a Lesbian posted, saying who the clinic helps and why it’s so desperately needed? Quote, “Important things to mention : Service is essential to well being of trans, gender-queer, queer,Lesbian, imigrant and uninsured people.” Note order of importance. As a Lesbian living below the poverty line, I could never afford to go there, so had to put up with Lesbian-hating doctors elsewhere.

I wonder how much the gay man gets paid? I wonder how much Kendall is paid to be director of NCLR? Why are Lesbians being asked to donate and work for a clinic that has been taken from us?

Well, I know you know the answer. It was fucking infuriating. I think I am the only one there (no, I didn’t pay to go) who knows or cares about this. They have taken almost EVERYTHING from us. Even our blood.

REDACTEDMay 8 at 9:42pm Reply • Report

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Bev JoMay 8 at 10:46pm Reply • Report

I was radical way before the avengers, and, in spite of the nice name, thought of them as quite liberal. But I can’t really even remember what they did.

2. Most “peeping tom” reports, simple assault reports, indecent exposure reports, trespassing reports, disturbing the peace reports, etc. are not “newsworthy” even if reported to law enforcement, especially if no arrest is made.

3. Police do not inquire as to the internal gender identity of males arrested in women’s restrooms.

4. When GLAAD media guidelines are followed, such incidents are reported as “women” attacking women.

5. Even with these limitations you can pull up hundreds of instances of fucked up crimes against women by male transgenders with any cursory search, a percentage of which take place in bathrooms/locker rooms.

6. Women’s restrooms are a favorite topic of transgenders (and transgender porn) but they are only one category of sex-segregated areas where sex-segregation is designed to protect the safety and equal rights of females as a protected sex category.

Other categories include (but are not limited to) :

Hospital Bed Assignments

Prisons

Locker rooms

Sports competition

Statistical Data collection

Title IX endowments

Women’s Health resources, statistics and research endowment

Sex based crime statistics

Support Groups

Rape Crisis Centers

Communal showers

Children’s sleepover camps

Homeless Shelters

7. Transgenders want to eliminate sex as a legal class in order to eliminate legal status of females.

8. They claim that males are so dangerous that sharing toilets with males is life-threatening when “en femme”, yet deny the same when women protest sharing our facilities with males, deny the indisputable reality of sex based crimes and oppression against females.

9. There are news articles where transgender males attack females in bathrooms, bite off the noses of other transgender males in the ladies room, disguise themselves as female to see naked women in locker rooms, transgender males raping dogs, stabbing goats, abducting children. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to male gender fetishists who by definition are anti-female. They have already dismissed reality, overwhelming reality about the lives of females they claim to want to inhabit. No amount of reality, news stories, statistical evidence, will make these men act in good faith towards women.

We have nothing. Anyone who has attempted has been no-platformed. We would need a very strong clear coalition of mainstream feminists outlining the ways gender identity impinges on the rights of females. Most of us are still working on the consciousness-raising phase of the program rather than implementation.